Lordy, some sense:
The Queensland government will veto Adani’s application for a $1bn commonwealth loan to build a rail line for its massive Carmichael mine, Annastacia Palaszczuk has said.
Palaszczuk said the dramatic move, amid her campaign for re-election, came in response to what she believed was a federal Coalition plan to “smear” her and her partner, Shaun Drabsch, over his role in Adani’s loan application to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif).
As the government is in caretaker mode, any move to veto the loan would need bipartisan support.
The move will be a heavy blow to the Indian mining giant’s attempt to win finance in China for the controversial coalmine, but puts the state Labor government on the right side of opinion polls on the issue.
Palaszczuk has accused some in the federal government of breaching commercial in confidence obligations around Naif to try to sabotage her campaign.
But the upshot of the rumours is that Palaszczuk has discovered she unwittingly had a perceived conflict of interest because her partner worked on an Adani loan bid her government may have been asked to sign off on.
Palaszczuk said she learned on Tuesday of “a rumour circulating among LNP senators” about Drabsch’s work as managing partner for PwC, which helped Adani with its Naif loan application.
“I am told they planned to use this during the election campaign to impugn my character and suggest something untoward,” she said.
Drabsch was involved in PwC’s work for Adani and its bid for the federal loan but she did not know this until after the rumour arose this week, Palaszczuk said.
Palaszczuk sought the advice of the Queensland integrity commissioner, who told her “a reasonable member of the public, properly informed” would perceive she now had a conflict of interest.
Palaszczuk said she now wanted to “remove doubt about any perception of conflict” by notifying the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, that “my government will exercise its ‘veto’ to not support the Naif loan”.
Or not:
The LNP won’t back the vetoing of a $1 billion federal government loan to the Adani coalmine amid threats from Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
LNP leader Tim Nicholls said he would allow the loan to Adani to go through if it was independently assessed by the NAIF.
It was revealed on Friday Labor would need bipartisan support for the veto.
“An LNP government that I lead would never stand in the way of funds being invested in job creating projects in Queensland, no matter what type of project that would be,” Mr Nicholls said.
“I think this is very much an excuse because of the internal factional brawling in the Labor Party about the Carmichael mine project to step away from it in the heat of an election campaign.”
Fakes everywhere you look.
